In advance of the upcoming elections this week, a member of a party standing for election has been leafleting parts of Ellesmere Port with bigoted, transphobic literature. The flyer stated inflammatory anti-trans rhetoric such as “there’s no such thing as non binary”, “transitioning children is profound abuse” and “no woman has a penis” – in a slur aimed directly at the trans community.
The literature was distributed by local transphobe Sally James, from the Party of Women. Sally James is a candidate in Thursday’s election, with her whole election promise being to stop trans women (who she calls men) from using any women’s spaces. Sally also declares people should be able to “speak freely about our concerns in our places of work” – which means to be transphobic wherever they want.
The literature was photographed and added to X (formerly Twitter, to deadname the platform) by local business owner Darren Jamieson of Engage Web. In the 48hrs since the Tweet was made, Darren has received thousands of abusive responses from (mainly) anonymous accounts, where bigots have hid behind their fake identities to avoid repercussions for their comments. Darren has been called a misogynist, child abuser and even ‘rapey’ by user @SlugBanana60798.
Just had some awful bigotry posted through my door from @SallyJamesPOW – just imagine what someone transitioning will feel getting this shoved through their letterbox. Absolutely horrendous way to behave. pic.twitter.com/j8fVtccHLX
— Darren Jamieson / Engaging Marketeer (@MisterDaz) April 28, 2024
His original tweet has been seen 295,000 times at time of writing – this flyer has been posted through people’s doors, and into the homes of vulnerable trans people.
Before we continue – we should first clarify the uses of the terms anti-trans, transphobes and bigots in this post – as it was something that proved difficult for the fake accounts on Twitter to grasp.
The literature itself is anti-trans. It campaigns against trans people. Trans people are the specific target of the whole campaign. It is, therefore, anti-trans. When someone targets a minority such as this on the basis of them simply being who they are (gays for being gay, blacks for being black etc) that is, by definition, discriminatory. That is bigotry. Therefore the literature, and the people defending it, are anti-trans, transphobic and bigots. There can be no argument.
In some of the replies to the tweets many of the fake accounts defended their position insisting they weren’t bigots because they weren’t attacking a minority, stating “men are not a minority”. They were denying the fact that trans women are women. That, itself, is bigotry and anti-trans.
So, for the rest of this article, we’ll call them what they are: bigots.
Other members of the Party of Women also joined the pile on, with Esther Knight accusing Darren of hating women – a popular response to him defending trans women.
Why do you hate women?
— Esther Knight POW (@EstherKnightPOW) April 28, 2024
The suggestions that Darren hates women were commonplace, as were the responses from the bigots that they’re not bigots because they don’t recognise trans women as women, and males are not a minority. This argument, in itself, is bigoted.
The dog pile (the internet term for when people descend on one person at the same time, bombarding them with abuse so they relent) was also joined by Kellie-Jay Keen, also known as Posie Parker. Keen was the founder of the Party of Women, and also has been linked with alt-right members and Neo-Nazis.
Do get a grip.
— Kellie-Jay Keen (@ThePosieParker) April 28, 2024
In keeping with the far right, grammar is not their friend and this leaflet showcases the poor attention to detail. Many people on Twitter pointed out the basic grammatical mistake in the title of the flyer.
How can we trust your party when they can’t even use basic grammar??? pic.twitter.com/9ELSnf5Jkq
— Nathan (@nathan_1617) April 29, 2024
You’d expect the odd typo in the text perhaps – but the title? Of a flyer that is printed in the thousands?
The bigoted followers took to looking up Darren’s content and history, wherever they could, with one user finding his bio on one website and tweeting a screenshot to the baying transphobic masses. This was in response to another user who’d found tweets of Darren’s drone imagery and then accused him of being a peeping Tom.
Look at his bio. Do biz with me, but I’m an angry man, be warned! pic.twitter.com/EIBfgfDjtC
— GoodyTwoShoes 💚🤍💜✂️🌈 (@GoodieTwoShooes) April 29, 2024
The attempted character assassination involved trawling through 15-years of his tweets, and finding anything they could online to tweet it for the dog piling to continue – all in the name of the Party of Women.
Even tweets about work presentations were screenshotted and posted in attempt to attack him.
I doubt that this was an accident: pic.twitter.com/Ma8dkT3qJx
— Banana Slug 🇮🇪🏳️🌈 (@SlugBanana60798) April 29, 2024
The attacks culminated in the accusations of rape.
Why are you a violent rapey child abuser? pic.twitter.com/ZzOujGkPJn
— Banana Slug 🇮🇪🏳️🌈 (@SlugBanana60798) April 28, 2024
Darren, however, doesn’t care. If the thousands of transphobic bigots are targeting him, they’re laying off others who are more vulnerable. While he occupies their venom, someone else who is perhaps more in danger receives some respite.
It’s no coincidence that almost every single person spouting this horrendous venom on Twitter is using a fake profile, a fake name, fake photo and is hiding their identity. They know what they’re posting isn’t acceptable and they wouldn’t have the guts to say any of this using their real name.
The Party of Women however, with Sally James in Ellesmere Port, are happy to use their real names. They are happy to be transphobic in public and post anti-trans literature through people’s doors. They’ll cause hurt. They’ll cause upset. And they’ll embolden the worst members of society, giving their hatreds credibility, so they attack others.
This party will cause violent attacks on trans women, and they will be responsible for them.
The final word in this should come from Sally James who, in this tweet, denies that trans women are women at all.
They're not women though, are they Darren. And they are certainly not entitled to women's rights.
— Sally James POW (@SallyJamesPOW) April 28, 2024
